In the last episode of The edgeIt is Decoder podcast, Wassym Bensaid, Rivian’s head of software, explained why the electric vehicle maker still refuses to offer Apple CarPlay.
In short, Bensaid said Rivian didn’t want CarPlay to fully take over the software experience.
“The challenge with screen mirroring solutions is that they take care of every pixel in the car,” he said.
Instead, Rivian prefers to offer its own interface with “end-to-end integration”.
Bensaid added that “the deep integration of AI into the car” will eventually make the debate over offering CarPlay in vehicles “completely obsolete.” He believes Rivian owners will be able to access basic functionality of many apps through an AI agent, rather than having to rely on CarPlay or Android Auto.
“I really believe that the way you interact with applications that are single-threaded, single buttons, single icons, a lot of it will now be completely reshaped in a world where it becomes agentic integration that presents itself in a healthy user experience for the user,” Bensaid explained. However, he admitted that it will take time for an AI agent to become an “alternative solution” to CarPlay apps.
Already, Rivian owners are becoming less and less interested in CarPlay, according to Bensaid. He said Rivian’s internal statistics showed more than 70 percent of customers wanted CarPlay when their vehicle launched about five years ago, but he said a recent survey showed that figure was apparently lower than 25 percent now.
“With the level of features that we’ve provided to customers, with the level of end-to-end integration, with the level of convenience that we bring, CarPlay, or Android Auto to that extent, is no longer a topic of discussion,” he said.
